Prior art musical systems are known that transmit songs in response to a stimulus, that transmit known songs that can be sung along with, and that identify songs being sung. With respect to the transmission of songs in response to a stimuli, many today's toys embody such musical systems wherein one or more children's songs are sung by such toys in response to a specified stimulus to the toy, e.g., pushing a button, pulling a string. Such musical toys may also generate a corresponding toy response that accompanies the song being sung, i.e., movement of one or more toy parts. See, e.g., Japanese Publication Nos. 02235086A and 2000232761A.
Karaoke musical systems, which are well known in the art, are systems that allow a participant to sing along with a known song, i.e., the participant follows along with the words and sounds transmitted by the karaoke system. Some karaoke systems embody the capability to provide an orchestral or second-vocal accompaniment to the karaoke song, to provide a harmony accompaniment to the karaoke song, and/or to provide pitch adjustments to the second-vocal or harmony accompaniments based upon pitch of the lead singer. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,857,171, 5,811,708, and 5,447,438.
Other musical systems have the capability to process a song being sung for the purpose of retrieving information relative to such song, e.g., title, from a music database. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,121,530 describes a web-based retrieval system that utilizes relative pitch values and relative span values to retrieve a song being sung.
None of the foregoing musical systems, however, provides an integrated functional capability wherein a song being sung is recognized and an accompaniment, e.g., the recognized song, is then transmitted in synchronism with the song being song. Accordingly; a need exists for a song-matching system that encompasses the capability to recognize a song being sung and to transmit an accompaniment, e.g., the recognized song, in synchronism with the song being sung.